98 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY 



white horses, four elephants, four camels, and four 

 brown-skinned buffaloes with enormous horns, Other 

 elephants walk by themselves, a reminiscence perhaps 

 of the part taken in a procession at Rome by an 

 elephant presented by the King of Portugal to 

 Leo X., which knelt at the Pope's feet. But 

 animals produce a finer effect when led, or allowed 

 to walk alone in a pageant, than when harnessed to 

 cars. Connoisseurs say that when led, it should 

 always be by black men or brown men African, 

 for choice with bare arms holding the leading reins. 

 The organiser of the next Lord Mayor's Show 

 might do worse than break up the columns of 

 cars and uniformed processionists by teams of all 

 the beasts of burden used in the British Empire. 

 Bactrian camels, white Indian draught oxen, rein- 

 deer cars, Indian elephants, water buffaloes, and 

 Egyptian dromedaries, with their native drivers 

 and equipments, would give the spectacular effect 

 required, with just that amount of symbolism which 

 the sentiment of pageants demands. 



Horses regarded as material for State processions, 

 occupy a different place from that assigned to other 

 animals by European custom. In the East, led 

 horses, richly caparisoned, always form part of the 

 show on State occasions, and in princely stables 

 many animals are kept solely for processional 



